Friends,
I recently purchased a very nice Model 18 and shot it for the first time yesterday. It fails to fire about one round in six when fired double action. It is more reliable on single action, but there are still misfires.
Brand does seem to make a difference. The CCI was the most reliable, Remington less so, and it didn't like Federal at all.
Further, the cylinder binds up and fails to rotate completely after some of the misfires. Firing DA, it locks about 3/4 the way into the trigger pull. I cannot manually cock the hammer in this event either. Opening the cylinder frees the stoppage. I suspect this to be related to the misfires.
Any theories? Thanks!